Judge Vinson Challenges Regime

Mar 4, 2011

RUSH: Remember yesterday when we were chronicling how Reuters was reporting the decision from Judge Vinson and how outraged I was at the way they were choosing to report what Judge Vinson had said? I’ve got the whole story now, and it’s worse than I even thought. The headline of their story: ‘Judge Refuses to Halt New Health Care Law.’ Now, sitting here today we know what the judge actually said. The judge is ticked off. The judge gave them seven days to expedite their appeal or the other 26 AGs who have filed suit can go ahead and stop implementing this thing.

The judge in his ruling yesterday made it plain he thought the regime would abide by his law, that he didn’t need to put an injunction in there. He thought they were gonna abide by the law, him and his ruling being the law. So I got hold of that Reuters story that finally cleared about two o’clock in the afternoon yesterday. Listen to this: ‘A judge put on hold his ruling that President Barack Obama’s sweeping healthcare law was unconstitutional pending appeal, allowing the White House to continue implementing the reforms aimed at lowering soaring healthcare costs.’ That paragraph is just irresponsible! If it were possible to be criminal in journalism, this would be it.

A judge put on hold his own ruling that Obama’s health care law was unconstitutional? He did no such thing! The judge did not say, ‘Oops, I screwed up. You know, last time I ruled on this I told you it was unconstitutional? Well, it wasn’t. It is. It’s constitutional. ‘He did not say that. ‘[A]llowing the White House to continue implementing the reforms…’? He gave them seven days or hellfire erupts! And then, of course, the obligatory: ‘[T]he reforms aimed at lowering soaring healthcare costs.’ This is Tom Brown writing at Reuters. Mr. Brown, nobody now thinks that health care costs are gonna be ‘lowered.’ Even the regime has admitted it now! Nobody! This is the kind of thing…

Some days this stuff really makes me mad. Some days it really ticks me off. I gotta be ticked off to begin with, these guys alone can’t destroy my mood, but this is just unconscionable. ‘But U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ordered the administration to seek within the next week an expedited appellate review of his Jan. 31 ruling, which favored arguments by 26 states that requiring Americans to buy health insurance starting in 2014 or pay a penalty was unconstitutional. The Obama [regime] previously has said it would appeal the Florida judge’s ruling and continue implementing the law, which includes provisions allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ healthcare insurance and prevents insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing medical conditions.

‘While Vinson and a federal judge in Virginia have ruled against the law, a cornerstone of Obama’s domestic agenda, judges in several other states have dismissed challenges. Vinson, who was appointed to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan, is alone in having ruled…’ It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Once a federal judge says, ‘It’s unconstitutional,’ that’s it. You don’t cherry-pick the rulings from various judges. ‘Vinson’s order, which basically stayed his Jan. 31 ruling pending appeal, was prompted by a request filed by the Department of Justice…’At any rate, this Reuters story is just…

Well, it’s wrong — and it is purposefully wrong, and we had it nailed yesterday exactly what this is. Here. Listen. There’s another good review of this from our buds at the Heritage Foundation, Hans von Spakovsky. The regime ‘got a well-deserved rebuke today from Judge Roger Vinson in the Florida lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare … Judge Vinson issued a new order in response to a bizarre and obtuse ‘motion to clarify’ that the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed on February 17. Vinson’s original order on January 31 could not have been clearer: He declared the entire law unconstitutional and specifically said that, because he presumed that officials of the executive branch would adhere to the law as declared by a court, his declaratory judgment striking the law down was the functional equivalent of an injunction.

‘Judge Vinson wrote then that he presumed that the executive branch would follow his order, which any lawyer (including a lawyer President) would know requires them to cease implementing Obamacare with respect to the 26 states that are plaintiffs and the National Federation of Independent Business. That turned out to be a faulty presumption’ the judge made because we’re dealing with a bunch of lawless people in this administration. ‘After waiting more than two weeks, the [regime] filed an insulting motion that essentially said the federal government would not comply with the judgment unless Judge Vinson issued another order ‘clarifying’ that he really meant what he said: that the executive branch was enjoined from implementing this unconstitutional law.’

Now, what’s going on here is the regime trying to run out the clock. The more of this that gets implement they know the tougher it’s gonna be to extract it. We know this, too! That’s why, ‘Repeal, repeal, repeal!’ Screw replacing, ‘Repeal, repeal, repeal!’ has been the order of the day. So they did. Hans von Spakovsky is right. The judge issued his ruling. Vacate the law. It’s unconstitutional. Two weeks later the regime files a motion, ‘Did you really mean to say our law is unconstitutional? Did you really mean to vacate it?’ and that’s when Vinson wrote what he wrote yesterday, and it was clear that he was irritated in the process. So the media and the regime are doing everything they can to thwart the rule of law in this country.

Everything they can. Now, Mr. von Spakovsky concludes: This is a serious strategic loss for the government. Judge Vinson has challenged the federal government to speed up the appeals process, which would normally take much longer, forcing the hand of the [regime], which would like to slow down the litigation through questionably legal tactics if it can get away with it so it can implement as much of Obamacare as possible before it gets to the Supreme Court. And it is also a clever suggestion to the appellate courts that will next hear these claims: The [regime]’s dilatory tactics should not trump the rule of law.

‘As Judge Vinson correctly observed, ‘It is very important to everyone in this country that this case move forward as soon as practically possible.’ Important to everyone except the [regime].’ So I just wanted to spend some time clarifying this because the ruling came out yesterday, and the regime and the media have done everything they can to (once again) make it look like the judge didn’t say what he said, to keep running out the clock. Here’s a good way to put it: What Judge Vinson is saying is that Obama’s lawyers basically ran to Illinois. They basically are saying they left the state. The Justice Department basically ran across the border to Illinois in order to get away from dealing with the ruling that Judge Vinson came down with.